First trip to galveston was underwhelming to say the least. I respooled with 15 lb line/2 oz egg weights out of paranoia. Got some small croaker, squid, and shrimp for bait.

Within 5 mins of my first cast, I landed a small gafftopsail on squid, maybe 10 in long.

Then for the next 2 hours, nothing but snags and losing of terminal tackle. Lost a total of 5 of each of the following: leaders, hooks, weights.

Started off casting straight out from the jetty, the waves might have been too strong and pushed my tackle into the rocks. Switched to casting to the sides, but almost every retrieve ended up snagging.

Gave up and relocated further south to the beach. Casting into the surf here was relatively snag free, but most of the bites I got seemed exploratory instead of commital. Nothing really grabbed the bait and ran. Majority of bait used was squid. I also cannot cast very far with the short 5.5 ft and 6.5 ft rods, maybe 30-50 yds?

Any technical critiques please?

Boy, were you right...

you really need head to Roll Over pass, just North of Galv. Take the ferry I am heading that way this weekend and all nest week. 15lb line seems light to me, but I am not the expert. 20 is the lowest I am going, on terminal. Check out Mrs Nancy's Bait camp on Face book, if you don't have Face book, find someone that does...plenty of tips on their site. They also sell bait there. Good luck, if you wee a White Power Wagon, give the guy driving it a Shout...

Egg sinkers are a bad choice in the surf because the waves and current will move your rig all over the bottom causing it to get stuck in the rocks. Remember that there are several feet of rocks below the water at the bottom of the jetty. Stick to pyramid or surf sinkers. They should stick to the sand a bit longer. For your setup, you can even use a small spider weight which works better.

You should be able to cast a good distance with a 6.5 ft rod if you are using 1 or 2 oz sinkers. Fishing the surf from the beach is a bit trickier because you need to know about sand bars and guts. You need to stand on a sand bar and cast to a gut. The rule of thumb is that bigger fish are in deeper guts so you want to fish the deepest gut you can cast to.